(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) President Donald J. Trump and Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk are trying to right-size the entire federal enterprise, just as companies — large and small — do daily.
Democrats are having none of it. Indeed, their rage over DOGE knows no borders.
“Donald Trump has turned the White House into The Elon Musk Show,” House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York complained this week on the Capitol steps. “It’s a malignant clown show. Nothing that is being done — nothing — is actually making life better for the American people. They are trying to take affirmative steps to make life worse.”
Meanwhile, journalist Joe Gallina asked Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D – Texas), “If you could speak directly to Elon Musk, what would you say?”
Crockett replied: “F–k off.”
Profanity would be an improvement at Musk-owned Tesla dealerships in California, Colorado, and Oregon. They have endured anti-Musk graffiti, vandalism, arson, and even gunfire. “Mostly peaceful” bullets have shattered the windows of Tesla facilities in recent weeks.
Despite this acrimony and political violence, the American people stand with Trump, Musk, and DOGE. A February 24 Harvard-Harris survey of 2,443 registered voters found that 76% favor “Undertaking a full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government expenditures.” Only 24% disagree.
Americans are righteously indignant about Washington, D.C. treating their hard-earned tax dollars like boys-room tampons:
- DOGE reports that the Department of Health and Human Services paid a non-profit called Family Endeavors $18 million per month since March 2024 to manage an empty immigration facility in Pecos, Texas. That’s $180 million, through December 31, to run a vacant space.
- A mysterious “climate” group called Power Forward Communities, tied to failed Democrat gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams of Georgia, declared 2023 income of $100. Regardless, Team Biden last year handed PFC a whopping $2 billionEPA grant. “That’s 20 million timesthe organization’s reported revenue,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
- USAID distributed $2 billion in Haiti-related grants. “Only 2% of the 2 billion went to where it was supposed to,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said Tuesday. “Half of it went to all of these aid groups based around DC,” he added. “Are liberals just stealing from poor black people and calling it compassion?”
Graft aside, Washington exhibits basic mismanagement and mind-blowing incompetence.
“The FAA is using floppy disks to manage some of their systems,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed. “This is ancient technology,” he added. “It costs $0.90 of every dollar to maintain these really old systems.”
Rather than scream, “Resist!” Democrats should concede that Trump, Musk, and DOGE are right about these indefensible federal failures. Having Washington’s computers operate as if the Internet never lived, and keypunch cards never died, serves neither free-spending liberals nor free-market conservatives.
Helping, rather than hindering, DOGE excise federal excesses and self-humiliating deficiencies would make Democrats far easier to take seriously when they urge Republicans to think twice before cutting programs that accomplish something.
The National Institutes of Health battles the forced march into twilight known as Alzheimer’s. DOGE sacked 10% of the 100-member Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementia, including lead researcher Kendall Van Keuren-Jensen. While CARD should survive a 10% staff reduction, Democrats, and some Republicans, would argue that accelerating treatments and cures for this crippling mental ailment would buoy Alzheimer’s victims and reduce public-health expenditures.
Trump and DOGE would be more sympathetic to such pleas, if Democrats first said, “We agree: It was stupid to spend USAID money to jet Ukrainian designers and models to Paris Fashion Week. Ditto $2 million squandered on Moroccan pottery classes. Let’s recover those funds. Now, will you agree to keep CARD properly staffed, so we can send Alzheimer’s the way of polio and smallpox?”
Defending federal dysfunction is a losing proposition. If Democrats want to champion anything that Washington gets right, they should admit that Trump, Musk, and DOGE are uncovering billions of dollars in federal wrongs.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
